


saudade

by philthestone



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Light Angst, amiright, angsty six month gaps between movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 18:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2239203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Bantha shit,” she says automatically, because it is the first bordering-on-vulgar thing that comes to her mind and if anyone (Han) has taught her anything, it’s that in moments like these, bordering-on-vulgar is always useful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	saudade

**Author's Note:**

> a collection of sort-of-random moments in Leia's brain spanning through the six months between ESB and ROTJ, in which they look for Han, among other things. It's not my best work, but I've been typing away at it forever and I really really needed to finally post it. It's mostly just ramblings in Leia's head and doesn't really have any direction or story and there is an over-abundance of italics, but oh well. Also, various headcanons about this time period have been slotted in.
> 
> If you have a strong aversion to run-on sentences, back away now. You have been warned.
> 
> Reviews are that feeling of silky wonder when you shave your legs and immediately dive under the blankets.

Luke is in surgery when Wedge Antilles finds her, sitting outside the medicenter with her legs tucked into her chest and her chin pressed against her knees and her eyes blank and lifeless and hopefully not _too_ red-rimmed.

He sits down beside her but doesn’t mimic her pose, choosing instead to swing his dangling legs back and forth against the ledge they’re perched on. It’s so high up she’d have to jump to reach the ground again.

He scratches at the peeling paint of the ledge and doesn’t say anything other than, “you think Luke’s gonna be okay?” His voice is quiet and serious and has that tone her father used to use when talking to those who were grieving their loved ones, and she inhales sharply.

“He’ll make it. He’s strong.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” The relief in his voice is tangible, and it settles down over her head like a blanket and makes her feel guilty for – 

What, she doesn’t know, exactly.

She doesn’t move her head to nod, instead keeping her chin pressed against her knees. It’s been eleven standard hours since the Flacon docked on Home One and she is not sure if she trusts herself to speak any more than she just did.

“I’m sorry,” says Wedge. 

Nothing specific. Just: “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” she says, and is surprised at how easily the words come out. “You haven’t done anything.”

He laughs, weakly, and swings his leg just a bit further than the last time. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Right.” She is whispering again. She whispered when she first stepped off of the Falcon’s ramp, too – _I would like to report a missing person; age, thirty-one, height, six foot one inch, name –_

And she doesn’t know if it is because she doesn’t want to squeeze out the words or her voice has just decided to stop working.

“Are ... are you okay?”

(She wants to say that she isn’t. She wants to say that all she wants to do is curl up into a ball and never move again, wants to say that Luke is in there getting a goddamn new _hand_ , for Kest’s sake; that she really really really needs to be strong and tall and have everything figured out, but she doesn’t. And she isn’t.)

She stares straight ahead and says, “He’s not dead.”

That comes out in a whisper, too.

***

She realizes, that first night, that her nightmares are back.

The feeling of the empty space beside her is cold and shattering and like poison – something that seeps into her fingers as they reach over and swipe at cold, lifeless sheets, spreading to her chest and throat and gut and mouth and eyes and toes and _everywhere_. She feels the breath in her throat catch, squeeze out of her, and stares blindly at the darkness above her, drowning in the flashes of light and colour and screaming that have suddenly, vengefully become her dreams. 

And it is the first (but not the last) time since It Happened that she lets herself cry, fingers gripping the coarse standard-issue bed sheets and breath coming out in harsh rasping sobs.

The next morning, she wakes up with bags under her eyes that have not been there in months and an overwhelming feeling of isolation.

***

Luke is quieter than she is, which is unnerving. 

His new hand can be awkward and clumsy at times, and he’s constantly looking at her as though he is somehow personally responsible for (her nightmares, the bags under her eyes, his missing limb, the awkward wedge that seems to have slotted itself between them and that painful feeling of isolation in the wake of needing each other more than ever, the empty space at her side which used to hold a person, the fact that they both just really really want to cry all the time) _everything_ – which is weird, because she thinks that he’s the last person who could ever be considered responsible. 

He tries to pretend the new hand doesn’t bother him, but she catches him flexing his fingers deliberately when he thinks no one is looking, tapping them on hard surfaces and trying to hold things without fumbling. He is pale and silent and rarely has an appetite.

(She is the same, but she likes to believe she’s better at hiding it.)

She asks him, one standard week after he gets out of surgery, what is wrong.

“Nothing,” he says, and doesn’t look at her.

She nods and swallows and squeezes his shoulder and pretends that those words didn’t just carve another hole in her already gap-filled chest.

***

She finds ways to occupy her time that give her little opportunity to think of ( _he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone_ ) anything else.

Mon Mothma asks her to please take inventory on the number of troops still (alive) part of the Alliance, and she does not put her datapad down for a solid twelve hours. General Rieekan asks her early in the morning over her (fifth) cup of caf if she’s been getting any sleep at all.

She tries not to notice the sympathy and concern in his eyes and tells him that she isn’t tired, the lie slipping off of her tongue with practiced efficiency and leaving behind a strong taste of acid. 

(She tells herself that probably has more to do with the cheaply-made caf and not her own self-hatred and tendency to wax poetic in the confines of her own thoughts – but then, that is a lie, too.)

The words _I would sleep if I could_ hang unspoken between them.

***

Sometimes, she’ll forget and turn around to smile at his inevitable reaction to something, except that the space beside her is empty and the air is thick with unspoken words and _every single time_ her face falls and her stomach drops and she feels all of the energy drain out of her.

Sometimes, she’ll not turn around at all but hear that voice in her head regardless, commenting and ridiculing and generally saying things that she would usually take great pains to pretend were irritating her but secretly laugh about. 

(She tells herself that since he’s not there, it’s okay to laugh at them, because the principle of the thing is that _he_ doesn’t know she thinks he’s funny, even though she does.)

But that proves to be problematic, because she’s sitting in a High Council debriefing and she suddenly laughs out loud and everyone turns and looks at her strangely, and she clears her throat and tugs impulsively at the over-long sleeves of her shirt.

“Sorry, I – I just, thought of something funny.” She swallows. “Go on, General.”

Mon Mothma looks pained and General Rieekan looks concerned and General Dodonna looks at her as though she’s losing her marbles, but Wes Janson, who is the typist, shoots her a (sympathetic?) raised eyebrow and types something which she is sure reads, 

_Much to the confusion and/or chagrin of the general assembly (Dodonna in particular looks annoyed at being cut off) the estimable Senator-Princess Leia Organa, known for her level-headedness, firm resolve, and no-nonsense attitude, laughs out loud at something that we can only assume the Resident Han Solo In Her Head has commented on, which this humble typist can confidently say was probably either extremely vulgar or highly inappropriate. Poor girl’s going mad, I think._

She sighs.

***

It has been three standard months and she has gotten used to waking up screaming into the night with her fingernails digging into the skin of her palms and the bedsheets twisted vice-like around her legs.

It has been three standard months and she has _not_ gotten used to gasping awake with the ghost of his fingers on her skin, hot and flushed and needing. 

She is not sure which is worst.

She turns the temperature of her room down and tries to pretend that it makes a difference (it doesn’t) and that the stupid nightmares aren’t the same every night, with the smoke and the light reflecting and the black leather glove on her shoulder and his screams echoing down the corridors.

(She doesn’t think about the other dreams.)

Her small source of consolation is that very few others know – and even then, “very few” is being generous, the confidants having been narrowed down to Luke and the occasional Chewbacca – until one day she falls asleep out of sheer exhaustion in a corner of the hangar bay over a stack of datapads.

(Later, she will learn that she her screams nearly give heart attacks to every pilot within a mile’s radius, Mon Mothma, and the three Bothan informants. She can’t find it within herself to care.) 

Luke is the first one to find her, and he grabs her shoulders until she stops yelling and kicking (because _they’re hurting him and hurting Luke and for Kest’s sake please just hurt me instead)_ , the task of coaxing her awake probably more dangerous than facing an entire Imperial squadron on his own. 

“Shut up, Wes,” she hears him say.

His face is the first one that she sees when she wakes up and he is cradling her shoulders in his hands like her father used to do when she was a child and looking as though he is physically sharing her pain, and she feels the sting of the tears on her cheeks.

“I miss him,” is the first thing that comes out of her mouth ( _stupid mouth_ , she thinks) and Luke holds her as she starts to cry.

She really needs to break this habit, she thinks, as he wraps an arm around her and walks with her to her cabin – of crying in front of other people. It’s a nasty, miserable thing. That, and it makes Mon Mothma look concerned, and if there’s anything Mon Mothma really doesn’t have time for with a Rebellion to run, it’s being concerned for her.

When she tells Luke this, he laughs, that way he’s been doing for the past four months where his cheeks don’t crinkle and his mouth only quirks slightly and it doesn’t reach his eyes at all.

*** 

There is an(other) evacuation in the middle of the night because the damned Imps have possibly discovered their location _again_ and they’re being driven out of house and home (also hovel, hole, habitat, and other such h-words), and she doesn’t stop to think that it might be considered inappropriate for the Last Princess of Alderaan to slip onto the last transport with her hair in a simple braid down her back and her belt tied securely around a rumpled white shirt that is maybe four sizes too big.

(She tells herself with dignity that it isn’t _her_ fault that Lando asked if she wanted to take anything out of the crew quarters before they left and damn them all if they make assumptions because _let_ them make assumptions, for all she cares, because the stupid thing is _comfortable_ and she lost all of her sleepwear in the last evacuation, anyway.)

The transport is an old-but-not- _that_ -old Corellian freighter that is one of the few still-running larger ships that this particular Rebel base has in its possession, and halfway out of port and within firing range of four Imperial-issue TIE fighters, the engine shudders and the lights all flicker and there is a pause of maybe thirty standard seconds before she feels her entire mouth go dry as she blinks at the pilot in the captain’s chair and tells him, her voice wavering, that she knows how to fix it.

Hobbie gives her a look that is momentarily bewildered and momentarily confused and then swallows and nods, and she bolts out of her seat and tries not to trip as her boot-less feet slip and slide over the metallic floor on her way to the cargo hold where the rest of High Command is seated wondering what the hell is going on. 

She tells herself that she isn’t imagining his voice in her head as she tugs and pulls at the wires behind the fan, that she isn’t remembering the feeling of his fingers on her arm as he guided her hands through the motions, and she tells herself that the fact that she is mumbling almost nonsensical (and occasionally rhyming) instructions under her breath is really, really, honestly _none_ of High Command’s business.

(Mon Mothma asks her, once, as she is scanning the back of the hold because _where the kriffing hell is the hydrolics box with the coolant fan in it damn it all,_ if that is, by any chance, Captain Solo’s shirt. She spares a moment to say, “it was lying on the floor,” loud and clear and without shame, before turning back to the wall and yanking the stupid hydrolics box door open and sticking her hand behind the currently-not-spinning fan.)

She asks General Riekaan to help her with the spare pieces while she fiddles because she remembers that this is a two-person job, and when the ship jerks and they are nearly flung to the other side of the cargo bay she decides to ignore the possible reactions she might get and swears loudly, trying to ignore the panic in Hobbie’s voice as it sounds through the ship-wide comms. 

When she finally fixes the damn thing (remembering last second that obviously, the only way to get anything like this to start  
properly is to slam her hand into the console with anger and hadn’t he taught her _anything?_ ), she cheers along with everyone else and tries to imagine what he would do if he were standing there with her. 

***

She hears Wedge yell her name before he bursts unceremoniously into the (top-secret-confidential-High-Council-Members-Only) meeting room, slightly-out of breath and trying to stand halfway to attention.

“Lieutenant Antilles,” says Mon Mothma, and a braver man than Wedge Antilles would have quailed at the ice in her voice, even as Dodonna looks like he has swallowed a whole melon and Riekaan raises his eyebrows. “What, in the name of the Force, the galaxy, and all that is possibly holy, is so important that it demands Senator-Princess Organa’s attention at _precisely_ this second?”

Wedge breathes in, once, and out, once, and his eyes flick away from the corner of the room in which Wes is recording the meeting, breaking off what was inevitably a silent telepathic conversation to look at her.

“Chewie’s on the comm. He wants to talk to you, your highness.”

She feels her own datapad slip from suddenly-numb fingers and thud as it falls to the table.

“Do they –”

“Honestly,” says Wedge, “I can’t understand half the shit he’s saying. But I think they’ve got a lead.”

Leia runs.

***

When Luke finally tells her, she watches (in complete, total, and utter open-mouthed _shock_ ) as he stands in front of her and looks at the wall as though he would like nothing better than to have it collapse on top of him and she is silent for a full ten minutes, not knowing what to do.

Not knowing what to do _at all_.

She inhales sharply, her small frame shaking, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Luke,” she whispers. She swallows and feels the spittle grate against her dry throat – because her throat seems to be perpetually dry these days, despite the infinite cups off lukewarm caf – taking in one steadying breath and then another, exhaling through her nose.

“Luke,” she says again, slightly louder, and she feels her voice shake. _Oh, Luke_.

(Because the terrible, awful, horrible, life-altering, bone-shattering reality is that it _fits_ ; that if she thinks about it and thinks about everything he’s told her and everything she’s heard and – just, _everything_ – there is no other option than for it to be true. And she hates herself for knowing it.)

“It’s not your fault,” she finally manages, and cringes at how hollow and useless the words sound. She cringes again when Luke jerks his shoulder out of her grasp and takes a deep, gasping, shuddering breath and tries to control the wetness in his eyes.

“It is, though.”

“ _Luke –_ ” 

“Everything – everything that’s happened to you, it’s because of _me._ ”

“Bantha shit,” she says automatically, because it is the first bordering-on-vulgar thing that comes to her mind and if anyone (Han) has taught her anything, it’s that in moments like these, bordering-on-vulgar is always useful. “Nothing’s your fault.”

“If – _he_ –” (The word “he” is spit out with more venom and disgust and revulsion than she though Luke could ever possibly even _possess_ , only there’s something else under it, some undercurrent of _wanting_ , and she tries not to feel sick to her stomach.) “If I hadn’t – it was – you were –” 

“Take your time, Luke,” she says softly. And then, on impulse, reaches out and grabs his hand. Because he is _not_ his –

Well.

“He _used_ you,” he manages finally, his voice cracking and his whole frame crumbling inward as his shoulders sag. “He used you both to get to me. Because I’m his – because I am _his_. Don’t you get it? This – all of this – Han –”

“Is _not_ your fault,” she hisses, because she hates him for bringing that up (she doesn’t hate him for anything else, though, she realizes with sudden clarity) and he looks up at the tone of her voice. She tries to tell herself that she’s calm and composed, for his sake, but she isn’t.

At all.

“That,” she says again, and her voice is cracking and her entire _being_ is cracking and she promised herself that she wouldn’t do this in front of other people but it’s happening and there’s not a damn thing she can do to stop it. “Is not. Your. Fault.” The last word comes out as a sob and she bites down, hard, on her lip to prevent any others from escaping. She can taste the copper of the blood as it seeps into her mouth.

There is a pause, in which Luke scuffs his toe against the floor and she glares at the wall behind him and hates the universe. And then:

“You love him,” says Luke simply, and she swallows, because she can’t pretend that of everyone she knows, Luke isn’t the first to have known. But she still tries. 

“I haven’t –”

“No,” says Luke, and his eyes are sad. “But you love him.”

“Luke,” she says again, but he shakes his head, and gives her hand a squeeze. 

“Hey. I’ve been telling you this for the past two years, haven’t I? It’s about time.”

She stares at him, pretending that this is enough to make her momentarily forget the fact that they were both close to utterly crumbling in front of each other seconds before because of ultimate truths that just _can’t_ be true (there’s no way that she will ever forget, but she’s willing to give it a try) and it is a completely normal day in the history of the Rebel Alliance – because, Force help her, did he just pull an _I told you so_?

“I love you too,” she blurts, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Not,” she tries to collect her thoughts. “Not like _that._ But I do.”

“Leia.” Her name comes out of his mouth quietly. He looks like she does, she realizes; like he’s moments away from falling to pieces.

“I do. I _do._ I –” because she _has_ to make him understand this “ – Force help me, Luke Skywalker, you’re my best friend and I love you and there’s not a _damned_ thing in the galaxy that’s going to change that.”

She feels her chest rise and fall and realizes that at some point her hands have curled into fists and she lifts her chin, slightly, like she used to.

“Not a damned thing,” he repeats, and she nods her head, glaring at him and _daring_ him to give her a reason (because there are several, in his mind) why she shouldn’t. 

“Right.”

And then suddenly Luke’s forehead has fitted into her neck and she can feel his shoulders shaking under her hands, his sobs muffled by the fabric of her shirt and her own cries.

And she wants to hold on to him and never, ever, ever let him go.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and she can feel the damp patches on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Leia, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t you dare.”

***

She goes to Mon Mothma to ask for a leave of absence, the words “I’m damn well going whether you let me or not” hanging unspoken in the air between them and causing Mon to sigh and ask Leia to sit down.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Tea?” she repeats, and feels like there are cotton balls in her mouth.

“Yes,” says Mon. “I expect it will make you feel better than that horrid caf that you’ve been stashing away for the past five months.”

“Oh,” she says.

“Yes,” agrees Mon. And looks up at her over the tea pot. “How long will it take?”

She swallows. “I don’t know.” 

(But it doesn’t matter, because Luke’s made himself a new lightsaber and she found a bounty hunter disguise in the back of one of the commandeered freighters and if there’s one thing she hates more than anything it’s waiting for something awful to happen before she can do anything about it, and damn, but doesn’t that sound like someone she knows?)

“I see.” And then Mon sighs, as though she’s been dreading this moment for that past four years. “I never believed Carlist, you know.” 

A pause.

“What?”

Mon pours herself tea and she watches the white of her sleeves brush against the table.

“He told me a long time ago that there are things that motivate people a lot more than credits. I suppose I knew it to be true somewhere in my mind –” a wry look “– how else would I have managed to run an operation that promised nothing but a faint hope for a better future, possible venue for reckless heroics, and the occasional moldy ration bar?”

She doesn’t know what to do other than nod, so she does.

Mon purses her lips, slightly. “But I’d never really believed it, in my heart of hearts. I thought that the more credits you waved under someone’s nose, the more likely it was that they’d do you a favour. That was just the cold, hard truth of how the galaxy worked.”

“Mon –”

“No, don’t defend it. And don’t give me that look, because I _know_ you were going to. I know you, Leia,” She sighs, suddenly looking as old as she is, her usually-bright hair dull and lifeless in the dimly-lit cabin. “And I know that you never did believe that, even though there were many times you had wanted to.”

“I – I suppose so.”

“But I did – believe it, that is – and I think sometimes I still do, but Carlist, blast him, was right.”

“Because people can be passionate about something they aren’t being paid for?” she prompts, still unsure of the direction of the conversation. “They can believe in a cause without any monetary gain?”

Mon gives her a small, sad smile. “They can believe in a person, too, I think.”

She doesn’t say anything and instead sips at her tea, which is warm and sweet and decidedly better than the caf. And Mon Mothma turns back to her desk and pulls out a datapad.

“Do bring him back in one piece, Leia,” she says, raising her voice (and when she looks back on the meeting when she’s sitting behind Luke in the cockpit of his X-wing, she realizes that there is a glint of something akin to pride in the woman’s pale blue eyes). “Whatever other faults the man may have, I have to admit he’s a damn good pilot.”

She holds her tea in midair for roughly ten seconds before letting out a funny sound that sounds something like a gasp of relief.

“Luke’s coming with me,” she manages, and Mon raises an eyebrow.

“I daresay I’d have a great deal to say about it if he wasn’t, Princess Organa.”

And, _finally_ , she grins.

**Author's Note:**

> wow that was a terrible ending but I don't care  
> also there are possible mischaracterizations and there is a whole other side of those six months, in which leia kicks ass looking for fett and tracking and simultaneously dealing with bothans and yada yada but this is obviously not the whole six months, so I left lots of stuff out.  
> yes.


End file.
